Tomac takes 2nd in Seattle

Photo by Simon Cudby

Cortez’s Eli Tomac turns a corner Saturday at CenturyLink Field in Seattle during the Monster Energy AMA 250 Supercross event. Tomac took second in the race.

By Rob Geiger

SEATTLE — For the first time this season, two GEICO Honda 250SX riders finished on the podium in a Monster Energy AMA Supercross event after Eli Tomac finished second and Zach Osborne took third on Saturday night at CenturyLink Field.

Unfortunately for Tomac, he lost championship ground to 250SX West points leader and Saturday’s winner Ken Roczen.

“I was hoping to close the gap a little today,” Tomac said. “We’ve made our job to repeat a lot more difficult, but as long as I’m still mathematically alive, I’ll keep fighting. Crazy things have happened in the last couple of races of the year and I’m not giving up.”

Tomac has a 20-point deficit with just Salt Lake City and Las Vegas left on the 2013 schedule.

Through much of the main event, it looked like Tomac might be able to take at least a small bite out of Roczen’s lead. Tomac got the hole shot, led for a long stretch of the race and maintained a four-second gap over Roczen, who ran in second-place.

“I won my heat race, which gave me a really good gate pick and was really fired up,” Tomac said. “I was able to get out and establish a lead for the first nine laps. At that point, I got stuck in a deep rut coming out of the whoops and went over the bars.”

Despite the hard fall and a fender askew, Tomac popped right back up and finished the race.

“Luckily, I was able to get back up on the bike and hold on to a spot on the podium,” he said.

For Osborne, it was his first podium finish of the season after battling a shoulder injury for much of the time.

“The whole day was just really good,” Osborne said. “The practice, my heat race, it all was really good for me. In the main event, I got a solid start — somewhere around fifth-place. I worked my way through the pack and got in third and hung in there to the end.”

Race precision was key.

“The track was really technical tonight, you had to be real precise on hitting your marks. I felt like I was under control most of the race. The last lap, I made a pretty big mistake and it almost got away from me,” Osborne said.

Up next for GEICO Honda, is Saturday’s race at Salt Lake City’s Rice-Eccles Stadium.